Pumpkin Bread

I made this up based on a few recipes, but it is fantastic. Special thanks go to Cooks Illustrated for the method and general ratios.

Ingredients

• 2c unbleached all purpose white flour
  
• 1.5tsp baking powder
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• .5tsp salt (possibly +.25tsp more)
  
• 3/4c white (granulated) sugar
  
• 1/4c dark brown sugar
  
• 1 small pumpkin - peeled, seeded, and baked until soft. About 1.5c total.
  
• 1/4c buttermilk
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  
• 3tbsp butter, softened
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• spices - cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and allspice will get you on the right path. We did it "until it looked right" and tasted the batter after mixing, then adjusted.
  

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spice, brown sugar, and 1/4c of white sugar in a bowl. Set aside. Put the rest of the sugar in a stand mixer with the rest of the butter and cream together, about 5 minutes. While that's going, take the roasted pumpkin and mash together with the vanilla and buttermilk. We used a fork.

When the butter and sugar is creamy (about five minutes?) or until you're sick of waiting because your stand mixer was built in the early 70's, set the mixer to low speed and add one egg at a time to the butter / sugar mixture, giving plenty of time to beat afterward. Now make sure the blender is very low and add 1/2 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/3 of the pumpkin, then 1/2 of what's left of the flour, the second third of the pumpkin (half of what's left), and then the rest of the flour followed by the rest of the pumpkin. Taste and see if it needs anything. We added .25tsp salt and some spice.

Pour into a 9x5 bread pan (WELL greased - maybe floured, as well) and bake at 350 for 55 minutes. Actually ours took more like an hour and a half. Anyway definitely don't peak at it until about 50 minutes. Take it out when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Thoughts: fantastic! It was actually pretty easy to make. The mixing method (creaming together the ingredients) apparently prevents overmixing, so you don't have to do the standard quickbread mixing method. It does this by coating the flour in fat, so that not all the gluten can develop when you mix it. Anyway, with the extra .25tsp salt this was just right - not too sweet, not too salty, just really flavorful. It could stand up to chocolate chips or raisins, but we wanted to just get the standard recipe first. This would probably make pretty good muffins, too. The bread is very moist. Also, don't worry if the batter seems kind of... fiber-y. The fiber breaks down during baking, and you're left with a really smooth, delicious bread. If you decide to make this but use canned pumpkin, you may need to adjust the liquids somewhat. Just off the top of my head (though you'd kind of have to see what it looks like) I would guess that with canned pumpkin you'd use 2tsp baking powder, .5tsp soda, and no buttermilk.

Disaster Index: 1/10